OK Again

On the 11th of February, 2008, my Grandmother passed away, and I can still quite clearly recall the exact moment we received the news. My Mam got a phone call from the Nursing Home my Granny lived in to let her know that she should come over as soon as possible, my Granny had taken a bit of a turn. My Mam and Sister got in the car to go see her while myself and my Dad stayed behind in the house. They arrived a few minutes too late. I was sitting in my room playing Devil May Cry 4 when my Dad came in to break the news. At first it really didn't hit me and I went back to playing the game a minute after my Dad had left the room. It took me a little while to realise that there were tears rolling down my face.

After that I didn't cry again until a few days after the funeral, when myself and my Mam were cleaning up the room in the Nursing Home and I was taking down a picture I made for my Granny when I was a lot younger. It took me back to days spent with her and everything I had bottled up for the previous few days came bursting out and I sat there with my Mam, sobbing over the picture in my hands. The days in between these two moments are mostly a blur, with memories of the wake and funeral completely lost to me. I remember carrying the coffin to the grave with my cousins and throwing a fistful of dirt into the grave right before we left the cemetery. My Grandmother was 94, but her passing was still a shock, and I guess the manner of it just made me block a lot of it out.

At 7.10 on Sunday evening, my Grandfather passed away in a Hospice, surrounded by pretty much his whole family. His health had deteriorated over the last 6 months and when the Doctor advised us to move him to a Hospice, we knew he would more than likely not be coming back home. Last week he took a turn for the worse and myself, my Mam and my Sister traveled up to be with him. In the time we spent with him before the end, he wasn't able to say a single word, and only opened his eyes a couple of times. It was hard to see him like this, and I could barely hold it together while trying to be strong for my Mam, who was near inconsolable even before he passed. Early on Sunday the Doctors told us that he could go at anytime, so thankfully he waited long enough for everyone to gather. Each of his three children, and all but two of his grandchildren were able to gather around his bed throughout the day and laugh and joke about stories from days gone passed.

At around 7.05, a lot of people had left the room, to go get some dinner for everyone and a few other things. A short time later my Dad noticed my Grandad was awake. Within a couple of minutes he had taken his last breathe. I remember feeling a mixture of sadness, relief and guilt at that moment. Sadness for obvious reasons, relief that his suffering had come to an end and guilt that I hadn't spent more time with him. The next few days were harder, with the wake and funeral seeming to drag on for what felt like weeks. I thought a lot about my Granny and her passing over this time, but I have been completely taken unawares by how hard this has hit me.

At this point in the blog, I'm actually not sure what I want to say next. When I look back on what I've written so far, it seems very formal to me, with times and dates in place of what exactly I'm feeling right now. And I actually don't know what it is that I'm feeling. All of my great friends have been asking me how I am, and my reply is "I'm OK". But I'm not. I do know that I will be OK again one of these days, but right now I'm a bit of a wreck. I've just come out of the longest week of my life, the greatest man I've ever known is gone, and I just want to stay in bed and tell the world to go away for a while. When I turn the lights off and everything goes quiet, I know I'll think back to time spent with him in his work shed, or the days he used to bring me to work with him as a kid. These things are hard for me to think about at this time, but in the future they'll be the moments I'll cherish the most.

Yeah so anyway I just felt like writing this down, in a hope that sharing it may help me in some way.